Not that I’m not following it or stopped caring (I wish I could). Unfortunately, my response to the goings-on often resembles Khodasevich’s triad – “disgust, anger, and fear” or, in a more literal translation, “revulsion, malice, and fear.” Occasionally, I even lapse into pathetic fits of useless rage. In other words, if I can’t think clearly about something, I shouldn’t be writing about it. The best I can do for the time being is point out other people’s errors.

Rationally speaking, one should have patience, let Nature run its course, and think about the future. We should have ideas for a new dawn, I hear, even if the night seems endless. Instead, I’m thinking of an aging man, once brilliant and full of promise, now struggling, after a second stroke, to re-learn what comes naturally even to not very bright children. His progress impresses skeptics; then the final stroke comes.